CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT BRIEF

1
The Community Empowerment Network
(CEN) Communities of Practice for Local
Capacity in Central Asia
World Bank Institute (WBI) Europe and Central
Asia Social Development unit (ECSSD)
2
CEN and Context for Community Driven Development
(CDD) in Central Asia

• Critical issues for scaling up CDD in Central
  Asia prepared by the CDD Working Group/ECSSD
  (especially knowledge management and sharing
  pillar)

• CAS (e.g. Community-Linked Development in
  Tajikistan)
• Lending operations (NSIFT, VIP, AzRIP)

3
Knowledge sharing A Tool for Scaling Up

• The Community Empowerment Network for Azerbaijan,
  Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (CEN)
  was launched by WBI and the Europe and Central
  Asia Social Development unit (ECSSD) in late 2002
  as a community of practice for community-driven
  development (CDD) practitioners.

4
Knowledge sharing A Tool for Scaling Up (cont)

• Launching of various CDD-type operations in a
  short time in CAR, yet not enough time to capture
  and share lessons and knowledge
• The CoP tool was chosen by WBI to build capacity
  in Central Asia for scaling up Community-driven
  Development (CDD)

• CEN contributed to the creation of an
  ongoing, year-round, national-level activity that
  would allow for greater impact on the ground, and
  act as a more flexible tool to support the
  strategy for scaling up.

5
Knowledge sharing A Tool for Scaling Up (cont)

• For CDD and Communities of Practice

Added value of the CoP as a means to scale up
CDD is that both approaches are mutually
reinforcing since they stress the critical
importance of social capital.
6
Guiding Principles

• WBI developed a set of guiding principles to help
  ensure lessons learned would be applied to ensure
  the success of the project.
• These principles include
• - Local ownership
• - Multi-stakeholder
• participation/perspectives
• - Year-round activity
• - Linkage to World Bank
• country activities
• - Partnerships to leverage
• knowledge and resources

7
Two major levels of networking

• National Networks
• National Partner
• Steering Group
• Action Plan
• Mapping Exercise

CEN

• Regional Networking
• Monthly Videoconferences
• Annual Conferences
• Regional Web
• E-Newsletter
• Closed E-mail distribution list

8
Evaluation Results

• What has worked?
• Public awareness building
• Community-to-community knowledge sharing
• Tapping into local knowledge
• Local Partnership
• Building institutional capacity for CDD
• Local language focus

• Didnt work so well
• Linkages to World Bank Operations
• Innovative approaches
• Donor coordination
• Objectives and evaluation

• Worked moderately well
• - Government involvement
• - Stock-taking of CDD Initiatives
• - Regional exchange

9
Challenges and Constraints

• Advanced programming in a multi-year capacity
  building initiative
• Learning and KS may involve a small financial
  investment as compared to lending operations, yet
  time intensive
• Linking to Operations vs. in-country
  multi-stakeholder ownership

10
The future of CEN
Different starting points ? different progress

• WBI will focus more on the regional dimension,
  with a focus on distance learning and Internet
  technologies.
• The expectation is that
• rather than providing
• funds for each Network
• to use, the Networks
• will instead come to
• WBI when they need
• resources, whether financial or intellectual,
  for specific activities.

11
Lessons for Better Communities of Practice

• Place a greater emphasis on peer review between
  countries
• Establish clear indicators of progress
• Focus as much on processes as on activities